From Wikipedia:Curtis Emerson LeMay (November 15, 1906 – October 1, 1990) was a general in the United States Air Force and the vice presidential running mate of American Independent Party candidate George Wallace in 1968.

He is credited with designing and implementing an effective, but also controversial, systematic strategic bombing campaign in the Pacific theater of World War II. During the war, he was known for planning and executing a massive bombing campaign against cities in Japan. After the war, he headed the Berlin airlift, then reorganized the Strategic Air Command (SAC) into an effective instrument of nuclear war.

During the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, LeMay clashed again with U.S. President John F. Kennedy and Defense Secretary McNamara, arguing that he should be allowed to bomb nuclear missile sites in Cuba. He opposed the naval blockade and, after the end of the crisis, suggested that Cuba be invaded anyway, even after the Russians agreed to withdraw. LeMay called the peaceful resolution of the crisis "the greatest defeat in our history". Unknown to the U.S., the Soviet field commanders in Cuba had been given authority to launch—the only time such authority was delegated by higher command. They had twenty nuclear warheads for medium-range R-12 ballistic missiles capable of reaching U.S. cities (including Washington) and nine tactical nuclear missiles. If Soviet officers had launched them, many millions of U.S. citizens would have been killed. The ensuing SAC retaliatory thermonuclear strike would have killed roughly one hundred million Soviet citizens, and brought nuclear winter to much of the Northern Hemisphere. Kennedy refused LeMay's requests, however, and the naval blockade was successful.

Friday, October 22, 2010

In the episode "Mayberry Goes Hollywood" Barney tells Andy about somebody in town named Gordon Bellfield, who went out to Hollywood in the summer of 1960. Gordon traveled on a tour bus to see the stars' homes, and it stopped outside of Gary Cooper's house.

Gordon and the other passengers got out and went up to Cooper's porch, where the daily paper was still lying on the ground. The lady who sat next to Gordon on the bus bent down to pick it up but that's when Gary Cooper's maid came out. She told them to get off the grass and they all skedaddled back onto the bus.

In April of 1960, Gary Cooper had surgery for prostate cancer, but by that point it had already spread to his colon. Soon after, he developed cancer in his lungs and bones.

So when Gordon and those other tourists were gathered outside his house, the star of "High Noon" was probably inside in very poor health. I'm surprised the maid didn't chase them off with a much sterner warning. Or a broom.

When Barney related that story, it was January of 1961. By April of that year, the news had been made public, mostly due to Jimmy Stewart's emotional speech when he accepted an honorary Oscar for his friend.

On May 13, 1961, Gary Cooper passed away.

[The picture is from Gary Cooper's last visit home to Helena, Montana, in 1960.]BCnU.......

As America's TV Mom, June Cleaver was the personification of the Light in the TV Universe, of all that was good and wholesome in the American Family back in the 1950's.

But there was a dark side to her side of the family, and it all traced back to June's aunt, Martha Bronson.Aunt Martha, according to Ward Cleaver in the "Leave It To Beaver" episode "The Visiting Aunts", lived alone in Riverside and her only family was June and her two sons, Wally and Theodore.But Toobworld Central - yeah, just me - has a theory of relateeveety, in which Aunt Martha had an illegitimate daughter* named Jean Arnold, who would grow up to be the identical cousin of June Cleaver. Jean and June....

If Aunt Martha raised the girl, she eventually denied her relationship to her own daughter by late 1954. So that by 1958, as far as Ward and June were concerned, Aunt Martha had no other family, just as she wanted it.

Jean Arnold was a bad seed, there's no other way to put it. She had an artistic side, and gained some international fame as a ballerina. But it wasn't enough. With her partners Henri Felix and Frankie Ludwig, Jean participated in a jewel heist of uncut rubies in Hong Kong. The trio then sailed back to America, smuggling the rubies into Long Beach, California. Jean tried to play up to Michael Lanyard, the adventurer who was known as "The Lone Wolf", but he remained suspicious of her, as did a spry old private eye named George Bracken.(Coincidentally - par for the course in Toobworld - George had a twin brother named Gus. Gus Bracken worked as a fireman in Mayfield - where Jean Arnold's identical cousin June Cleaver lived with her family.)In order to keep the rubies to herself, Jean murdered her partner Henri Felix and tried to charter a boat out of Long Beach to take her to San Diego. But Lanyard and her other pursuers finally caught up to her in the US Customs warehouse.It's quite pozz'ble that June Cleaver's identical cousin eventually went to the gas chamber.

And that's why nobody in the family would ever mention Cousin Jean again, out of shame......BCnU!

* It could be that Aunt Martha was married to the girl's father, a man whose surname was Arnold. But she may have divorced him and taken back her maiden name.

Continuing with our celebration of the 50th anniversary for 'The Andy Griffith Show'.....

"Mayberry Goes Hollywood" provided a discrepancy about Floyd the Barber that allowed me to not only splain away the Zonk, but to link 'The Andy Griffith Show' to other TV classics - 'Star Trek', 'The Twilight Zone', and 'Leave It To Beaver'.

From that same episode, we have another Zonk. Actually, this is the first episode in which the subject comes up; the actual Zonk would happen two episodes later. We have a splainin for it, but one which is not as far-reaching as the one for Floyd the Barber's last name.In "Mayberry Goes Hollywood", Mayor Pike inflicted his daughter Juanita's singing "talents" on the town during the celebration for the arrival of the Hollywood production crew.

Juanita was dreadful.Josie Lloyd played the role of Juanita, and she returned to the show two episodes later for "The Beauty Contest".

But now she was known as Josephine Pike.

I think the splainin for this is a simple one. While the rest of Mayberry "recovered" from their Hollywood hysteria, Juanita deluded herself into thinking that there was a show business career in her future. She wasn't helped by her father, the "fat little mayor", who pushed her into the beauty contest just a few weeks later.

As such, Juanita realized that the name "Juanita Pike" was going to limit her options in the entertainment field. (She may have been named after a family member, perhaps an older cousin who worked at the diner and who occasionally dated Deputy Barney Fife.)

So she changed her name to Josephine Pike.Why was she inspired to take the name "Josephine"? Perhaps it was the name of a favorite aunt, her mother's sister.

And it's pozz'ble, just pozz'ble, that this Aunt Josephine made her living in an occupation usually associated with men.....

But after her father was revealed to be a scandalous adulterer*, Josephine Pike decided she didn't want to be associated with him any longer. Hoping to symbolize that she was severing ties to her father, Miss Pike changed her name again. This time she settled upon a name she probably thought would look good in lights: "Lydia Crossthwaite".

Despite her dreams of stardom, Lydia remained in the Mayberry area where she was good friends with Thelma Lou. She dated Sheriff Andy Taylor once, but that didn't go well. And several years later she went on a date with Goober Pyle.......

* As seen in the 'I Love Lucy' episode "Lucy Is Envious". Although those events occurred in 1954, it would be nearly a decade before Mayberry finally learned the truth - that Mayor Pike had gone to New York City with another woman. The only reason it was discovered was because Henry Pike (We learned his first name in the 'I Love Lucy' episode, never on 'The Andy Griffith Show'!) and his mistress were captured in pictures during a movie publicity stunt on the top of the Empire State Building. The stunt worked better than expected because only moments before Lucy and Ethel showed up as "The Women From Mars", a Gallifreyan Time Lord and one of his enemies, a Dalek, both made appearances on the observation deck as well........ BCnU!

From Wikipedia:Charles Abraham Halleck (August 22, 1900 – March 3, 1986) was a Republican leader of the United States House of Representatives from the second district of Indiana.Halleck was born near DeMotte, in Jasper County, Indiana, the son of Abraham and Lura (née Luce) Halleck. He served in the Infantry of the United States Army, during World War I. After military service, Halleck attended Indiana University at Bloomington. In 1924 Halleck was admitted to the bar and began practicing in Rensselaer. From 1924 and 1934 he was the Prosecuting Attorney for the thirteenth district court.

Following the death of the congressman-elect Frederick Landis in 1935, Halleck replaced him and remained in that position until 1969. A prominent member of the Conservative coalition, he served as the House Majority Leader after the elections of 1946 and 1952; he was House Minority Leader 1959-1964. He was a strong opponent of the liberal social proposals of Democrats John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, but supported the Vietnam War and was one of the strongest advocates for the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Along with Senator Everett Dirksen he was the face of the Republican Party during most of the 1960s, and made frequent appearances on television news and talk programs. The press jocularly nicknamed his joint appearances with Mr. Dirksen the "Ev and Charlie Show."After the 1964 election, Halleck was defeated in his bid to remain Minority Leader by Gerald Ford, who was the leader of a younger faction.

Thursday, October 21, 2010

Every so often, I come across a TV show episode that has plenty to offer Toobworld, or at the very least it provides a few puzzles to splain away.

I got one of those last weekend from 'The Andy Griffith Show' mini-marathon on TV Land. I knew "Mayberry Goes Hollywood" was going to be a big help with regards to splainin away how so many people outside the Mayberry/Mt. Pilot area knew about Sheriff Andy Taylor, his son Opie, Deputy Barney Fife and all the rest of the townfolk - the movie that was made in Mayberry back in 1961 gained the town and its citizens national recognition.

But it also provided a few facts that would later become discrepancies in future episodes.

Most of that was due to the introduction of Floyd the Barber in this, the thirteenth episode of the series. So with this post, we'll be focusing on him.....

Floyd the Barber was played by Howard McNear, but his character seems to be named Floyd Colby, whereas we know him today as Floyd Lawson from the rest of the series' run. "Colby's Tonsorial Parlor" is prominently displayed on the barbershop window during the Hollywood mania and the movie's producer, Mr. Harmon, addressed Floyd as "Mr. Colby" when he was taking his leave after their first meeting.

This is easy enough to splain away, but we have to go back over thirty years before the episode... and also head north to New York City.

Floyd Lawson always wanted to be a barber, ever since he was a little boy. As a teen, he used to practice on the neighborhood cats. (As Floyd tells Mr. Harmon, Mayberry had the baldest cats in the county.)

By the way, Mayberry is a good wholesome town. That's why neither Andy or Floyd stooped to the obvious joke that comes to mind when talking about giving a close shave to cats. And being their guest, Mr. Harmon probably thought better of mentioning it himself.

Floyd must have gone to the local barber college, probably located in Mt. Pilot. However, once he graduated, Floyd must have come to the realization that Mayberry was a one barber town. And Mr. Colby already had his practice established just down the street from the courthouse. That may have proved to be the situation in most of the towns in North Carolina, so Floyd must have set upon the idea of moving to New York City. In a town where there are eight million stories, there's almost that many heads to be clipped (minus the baldies) so the Big Apple was always going to have work for a barber.

Therefore, it's the opinion of Toobworld Central that Floyd Lawson made a complete break - he traded in Mayberry's fresh air for Times Square. (Yeah, I know that's a reference to a different rural comedy. Sue me.) He moved to New York City and set up his own barbershop on the lower East Side... about a year before the Great Depression hit. So much for making enough money to get that penthouse view on Park Avenue......

But Floyd most likely didn't stay long in New York City - after all, Andy did mention to Mr. Harmon that Floyd had been giving them uneven sideburns since most of the town was young-uns. (Hard to believe, since a lot of the townfolk were on average in their late fifties!).

And it's pozz'ble, just pozz'ble, as Muskie Muskrat says, that while he was in New York City, one of his haircuts lasted into the Twenty-Third Century..... Eventually, Floyd may have heard from his sister (who was married to a man named Ferguson) that Old Man Colby had passed away, and that Mayberry was in need of a new barber.

Floyd was probably feeling nostalgic for the old hometown. His parents may have passed away, but there was still his sister and his nephew Warren to think of. And if he was aware of his existence, Floyd also had a half-brother named Mitchell living over in Pitchville Flats, North Carolina (seen to the right of Somerset Frisby). But the main attraction was the chance to take up the mantle of being Mayberry's barber.Since he was working out of the same location as Old Man Colby did, Floyd must have taken up the lease for the barbershop. But he apparently decided to leave the name of the establishment as it was - "Colby's Barbershop". Change doesn't come too quickly in Mayberry, and you wouldn't want to confuse Goober.....

But when the town went crazy over the idea of becoming a Hollywood off-shoot, Floyd altered the name to "Colby's Tonsorial Parlor". After the Hollywood hysteria died down, Floyd decided to revert back to a style more in keeping with the Mayberry ambience. And since he was going to do that anyway, he probably figured the time was right to change the name of the place to "Floyd's Barbershop" (using the same lettering design as he had in New York City) in order to establish his identity and presence in the town.

As for Mr. Harmon calling Floyd Lawson "Mr. Colby", that was an assumption on the movie producer's part: Andy only introduced the barber as "Floyd", and the name of "Colby" was on the window. Since Mayberry folk are a good-hearted people, neither Floyd nor Andy thought of correcting him to spare him the embarrassment.

One final note of interest - Mitchell of Pitchville Flats was his half-brother as far as Toobworld Central is concerned. But Floyd Lawson had another relative who looked just like him. However, instead of it being another example of his father being a tom-catter, this other TV character was more in line with the theory of relateeveety established by 'The Patty Duke Show' - identical cousins.

And they were more than identical in just looking alike. His cousin - named Andy, by the way - was also a barber. He practiced in Mayfield, home of the Cleaver family. Two barbers who looked alike, one in Mayberry, one in Mayfield.......

As it always is in television - somebody gets a good idea, somebody else runs with it.

BCnU!

PS:

Eventually, Floyd Lawson will be inducted into the TV Crossover Hall of Fame on the Birthday Honors List because of his theoretical connections to 'Star Trek', 'The Twilight Zone', and 'Leave It To Beaver'......

I nearly threw up while watching 'Raising Hope' last week. I love the show, but the visual of Jimmy Chance pulling out his hair and then eating it wasn't very compatible to having dinner at the same time......~According to 'How I Met Your Mother', you're not a true New Yorker until 1] you've stolen a cab from somebody else, 2] cried on the subway and didn't give a damn what everybody else thought, and 3] killed a cockroach with your bare hand. In the thirty-three years I've lived here, I've only done one of those things. And I've never seen either Woody Allen or Maury Povich around town.....

However, last night I saw Lily Tomlin at the performance of 'La Cage Aux Folles' on Broadway (starring TV vets Kelsey Grammer, Fred Applegate, and Alyce Beasley). My friend Mark spoke to her after the show; I hope she appreciated how much she meant to his life back in his teen years.....~It certainly didn't do 'The Whole Truth' any good that the Chilean miners were rescued. ABC bumped the show off the air for a special report with Diane Sawyer......~I know this is going to sound racist, but one reason white guys are hired more often to play spies is because they can blend in better for most situations around the world. Even if there were black Irish prisoners in Mountjoy Prison, isn't Boris Kodjoe TOO noticeable? Anybody else who had been in that prison at the same time he claimed to be would surely have remembered a guy who looked like him!~Thank you, '30 Rock', for the live shows. More grist for the Inner Toob mill!~I really enjoyed 'Rubicon' on AMC. I only wish that it had been a guaranteed one season series so that they had an end game in place to wrap everything up. It's the type of show in which the longer it goes on, the less believable it will probably become. I would have been sorry if I never got the chance to see characters like Kale Ingram and Truxton Spengler again, but that would have been off-set by a memorable conclusion to the series. ('The Prisoner' is the example I hold up.)

I wish 'The Sopranos' had been like that. Imagine that first year wrapped up with Tony actually smothering his mother to death. How powerful would that show have been? Instead, it kept coming back for more seasons, and in my opinion (and I realize I'm in the minority), it just kept diminishing in quality and believability. ~The As Seen On TV showcase for Thursday was Senator Richard Russell. Wright King looked nothing like the historical figure, however. The man they should have cast was just making inroads into the business at the time - David Ogden Stiers. The role of Senator Russell was a small one and Stiers wasn't a name yet, so it would have been perfect.

From Wikipedia:Richard Brevard Russell, Jr. (November 2, 1897 – January 21, 1971) was a Democratic Party politician who was Governor and a long-time United States Senator from the state of Georgia.

He represented Georgia in the Senate from 1933 until his death in 1971. He was a founder and leader of the conservative coalition that dominated Congress from 1937 to 1963, and at his death was the most senior member of the Senate. He was for decades a leader of Southern opposition to the civil rights movement.

While a prime mentor of Johnson, Russell and the then-president Johnson also disagreed over civil rights. Russell, a white supremacist, had repeatedly blocked and defeated civil rights legislation via use of the filibuster and had co-authored the Southern Manifesto in opposition to civil rights. He had not supported the States Rights' Democratic Party of Strom Thurmond in 1948, but he opposed civil rights laws as unconstitutional and unwise. (Unlike Theodore Bilbo, "Cotton Ed" Smith and James Eastland, who had reputations as ruthless, tough-talking, heavy-handed race baiters, he never justified hatred or acts of violence to defend segregation. But he strongly defended white supremacy and apparently did not question it, nor ever apologize for his white supremacist views, votes and speeches.) Russell was key, for decades, in blocking meaningful civil rights legislation that might have protected African-Americans from lynching, disenfranchisement, and disparate treatment under the law.

A prominent supporter of a strong national defense, Russell became in the 1950s the most knowledgeable and powerful congressional leader in this area. He used his powers as chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee from 1951 to 1969 and then as chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee as an institutional base to add defense installations and jobs for Georgia. He was dubious about the Vietnam War, privately warning President Johnson repeatedly against deeper involvement.

This is one of the few instances in the production where the actor looked nothing like the historical figure. (See Adlai Stevenson in next year's collection.) But based on what Wikipedia had to say about him, maybe we were seeing the inner Russell.....

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

I mentioned yesterday that the season finale for 'Mad Men' gave us two Zonks. I decided the second one needed a bit more thinking on my part, and even now I'm not entirely happy with this splainin I came up with. But for now, 'twill serve.....

Peggy Olsen was visited at her SCDP office by her lesbian friend Joyce Ramsey, who brought along a model named Carolyn Jones. "Like Morticia," Joyce added during the introductions.

That was a pop culture reference for the home audience, a timeline touchstone for the show's era. If it happened today in that New York atmosphere, a reference to Morticia might bring Bebe Neuwirth to mind, or Angelica Huston from the movies. Those would have been preferable than pointing out that 'The Addams Family' was a TV show, when Wednesday Addams and Sally Draper should be sharing the same TV dimension.'The Addams Family' aird from 1964 to 1966, and this season of 'Mad Men' covered 1965. So even if there was a TV show about the Family Addams, it wouldn't have been made while their "real life" was playing out at the same time. (This is a general rule, but there are exceptions - like when Kramer was cast in an episode of 'Murphy Brown', as seen on 'Seinfeld'. But Murphy Brown was in the public eye as a newswoman; the Addams family were "quietly" living in the private sector.)

Whatever happened in the lives of the Addams family to thrust them into the public eye and eventually see their lives fictionalized in the movies must have happened after the show's cancellation (in the real world, that is. In Toobworld they just kept right on going with their lives, unseen by the TV audience in the Trueniverse.) Carolyn Jones could conceivably be Morticia in the Toobworld version of 'The Addams Family' as well as in the real world, but that show wouldn't be around in time for Joyce to make the reference.

But what if, within the framework of Toobworld, the reference was reversed? What if Joyce meant that it had been Morticia who played Carolyn Jones?

It's a standard principle of Toobworld, that we don't get to see every moment in the lives of TV characters. Who would want to? Did you really need to see Hurley taking a dump in the jungle on 'Lost'?

My classic example of this - Pavel Chekov was never in the 'Star Trek' episode "Space Seen", but we know he met Khan Noonian Singh. They both admitted as much in the movie "Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan".

And we already have an example of a member of the Addams clan having a life outside of the TV show. There was an episode in which Gomez kept getting whacked over the head, giving him multiple personalities. At some point it was clobberin' prime time again, even though it went unseen by the TV audience. They did, however, see its effect: Gomez Addams took on the role of the Riddler while the real Prince of Puzzles languished behind bars on 'Batman'.So what if a similar situation happened to his wife Morticia?

What if, in a storyline never filmed for the TV audience, Morticia Addams embarked on an acting career? And what if she gained notoriety playing a character named Carolyn Jones? That would have to happen at some point between episodes, most likely during the summer hiatus leading into the 1965 fall TV season, but before August of that year (which is when the fourth season finale of 'Mad Men' took place.)Having it happen so close to the "Tomorrowland" episode of 'Mad Men' would have made Morticia's role as Carolyn Jones fresh in the mind of Joyce, who also knew that Peggy would have picked up the reference. A few minutes later, we saw that Harry Crane recognized the significance of her name as well.

So when Joyce said, "This is Carolyn Jones... like Morticia", what she was saying was "Like Morticia Addams who played a character by the same name."

Now it makes me wonder what was it about the role of Carolyn Jones that made it so memorable/notorious when Morticia played her?

I'll bet it was nudity!BCnU!

PS:Hopefully Gomez Addams never had reason to visit the offices of SCDP. We know what would have happened if he met Don Draper's secretary/fiancee Megan Calvet - women who speak French drove him wild with desire!

Those closing scenes from each episode of 'Community' are usually "A Troy & Abed Thing". This past week had them in the cardboard spaceship simulator simulators and my Little Buddy Sean Shoehand (father of my god-daughter Rhiannon - HI, Rhiannon!) pointed out that Abed's "spaceship" had a flux capacitor drawn on the back wall.

The flux capacitor first appeared in the movie "Back To The Future"; it's the gizmo that makes time travel possible, according to Doc Brown.

The entire "Back To The Future" concept exists in Toobworld, Skitlandia, and the Tooniverse. Concentrating on Earth Prime-Time, Doc Brown proved to be a serlinguist at the beginning of the cartoon series:

And here's a 25th anniversary blipvert update to "Back To The Future" which should fully absorb the movie trilogy into the TV Universe:

But it also exists as an actual movie, which then must be a fictionalized version of the "true" events in Toobworld (even though the movie came first in our own timeline).

This is why TV shows like 'Stargate: SG-1', 'Stargate: Atlantis', '10 Things I Hate About You', and 'The Thick Of It' can refer to "Back To The Future" as a movie, while shows like 'Star Trek: Deep Space Nine' and 'Malcolm In The Middle' can refer to the flux capacitor as if it really existed.

The appearance of the sketched-out flux capacitor on 'Community' would straddle both ideas.

BCnU!

(A very big thanks to Sean for bringing it to my attention and for supplying the picture!)

From Wikipedia:General David Monroe Shoup (December 30, 1904 – January 13, 1983) was a World War II Medal of Honor recipient and the twenty-second Commandant of the United States Marine Corps (January 1, 1960–December 31, 1963). After his retirement, he was a vocal critic of the Vietnam War.

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

As I collect the names of those with connections to Toobworld who have passed away each year, the connections between them are sometimes eerie. For instance, the year when Jack Wild and Lennie Weinrib, both of 'H.R. Pufnstuf', passed away. Or when Richard Widmark and Abby Mann, both attached to the movie "Judgement at Nuremberg", died a day apart.

Today we lost actor Tom Bosley. Of all his roles in television, movies, and the stage, he is best known for playing Howard Cunningham in 'Happy Days'. Mr. C was the patriarch of a Milwaukee family in the 1950's, but Bosley wasn't the first to play the role.

On 'Love, American Style', Harold Gould played the father of Richie Cunningham in a segment called "Love And The Happy Days", which served as a backdoor pilot for the series. (Because of the nature of that show, that version of Howard Cunningham exists in the TV dimension Skitlandia.)

A month ago, Harold Gould passed away. So in just over thirty days we've lost both men who played Howard Cunningham.

Good night and may God bless, gentlemen.....I'll have more on Tom Bosley over the next few days.

Right off the bat, I want to give a big thanks to MediumRob of "The Medium Is Not Enough", the fourth most popular TV blog in the UK, for not only pointing out this piece of Toobworld goodness but for supplying the screen captcha as well. I watched it twice, the second LOOKING for the reference, but couldn't find it. I think Rob watched it three times to get it for me - I'd say that was above and beyond, but it is such a funny show.....

On the most recent episode of 'Community', which combined an excellent spoof of movies like "The Right Stuff" and "Apollo 13" with finger-lickin' good product placement done right, there's a tech manual near Abed which has the word "Sunnydale" scrawled along its spine.

As Rob suggested, this must be a reference to 'Buffy The Vampire Slayer' - the TV show, of course, not the movie.

How did a book from Sunnydale, California, end up at Greendale Community College in Colorado? That's an easy splainin!

Students are always selling off their text books after they're no longer needed, and eventually those books end up recycled back into the education system, somewhere. But while they still have ownership of those books, they mark them up - whether it's by highlighting key passages to study, or by showing school pride with the name of their school plastered along the spine.

The fourth season finale for 'Mad Men' gave us two more Zonks to hopefully disable. First up....While out in California to help her boss Don Draper with his children during his "business trip", Megan Calvet (not sure on the spelling of her last name; IMDb doesn't have it listed) reunited with her college roommate, Camille. Camille had become an actress and apparently had appeared in two episodes of 'Hogan's Heroes'.

First off, there's a timeline issue here. If I'm not mistaken, the episode "Tomorrowland" takes place around the Labor Day weekend in 1965. But 'Hogan's Heroes' debuted in September of that year. So either Megan was talking about episodes that Camille filmed and had not aired yet, or it's further proof that Toobworld isn't the same as the real world - as if android and aliens and talking horses living among us wasn't enough proof.

Any other TV character might have then asked, "What's 'Hogan's Heroes'?", but Don Draper is in the ad biz, so knowledge of the upcoming show must have crossed his desk at some point. (Even though Harry Crane as Head of Media for SCDP would be more involved, Don would have had to okay any advertising campaigns for the show, being head of Creative and a partner in the firm.) Thanks to that, I don't think we have to jump through hoops saying that it debuted the year before, creating that difference between Toobworld and the Trueniverse.

By the way, we can't just say it was a movie based on the "real-life" exploits of the prisoners in Stalag 13, because Megan did say Camille was in two episodes. (And it was real life as far as Toobworld goes, because it was treated as such in episodes of 'Green Acres' and 'Batman'.)

Besides, TV characters were actually watching it in episodes of 'Roseanne', 'Big Wolf On Campus', and 'NewsRadio'. (The TV shows 'NCIS', 'Numb3rs', 'Just Shoot Me', 'Gilmore Girls', 'Farscape', 'The Nanny', 'Full House', 'The A-Team', and 'Action' all make references to the TV show, mostly in calling people "Colonel Klink" or "Sgt. Schultz". All of those took place long after the series concluded. The 'Mad Men' reference took place before it aired.)

But we can still consider the Toobworld version of 'Hogan's Heroes' to be different than the one in the real world because of the participation of Camille. A quick check of the cast list at IMDb (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058812/epcast) doesn't reveal anyone named Camille. That could also mean that she was uncredited in a non-speaking role, however... perhaps someone in the neighboring town, in the background at the local restaurant or beer hall.

No matter how that plays out, it still means that her two episodes are different from those seen in the real world. And why stop there? Maybe whole storylines were different from the originals. Maybe it was even an action/adventure series rather than a sitcom.

In the end, the televersion of 'Hogan's Heroes' was based on real-life events and would never be considered a Zonk when mentioned in other TV shows.

From Wikipedia:Evelyn Maurine Norton Lincoln (June 25, 1909 – May 11, 1995) was the personal secretary to John F. Kennedy from his election to the United States Senate in 1953 until his 1963 assassination in Dallas. Mrs. Lincoln, who was in the motorcade when Kennedy was assassinated, made it a point to visit Kennedy's grave at Arlington National Cemetery every year afterward on the anniversary of his death.

Mrs. Lincoln was the author of two books:My 12 Years With John F. Kennedy

Monday, October 18, 2010

Digging through the pile of stories written for "Inner Toob" (but yet to be posted), I found one about the season premiere of 'Chuck' from last month.

So, let's finally get around to it.....

'Chuck' provided a couple of examples of Toobworld goodness in its first episode back this Fall TV season. Here's what they offered up:

1) HARRY DEAN STANTON AS THE "REPO MAN"Twenty-six years ago, Harry Dean Stanton starred in a cult classic, "Repo Man" with Emilio Estevez. And here he was again as that character, working the same job - repossessing cars. And this time it was Chuck and Morgan's $900.00 lemon. The name of the character wasn't stated within the episode and Toobworld Central doesn't acknowledge what happens in a show's credits. Therefore, why can't we assume that the actor was playing Bud, the same character as in the movie?

It's not like 'Chuck' has never crossed over with a movie before. It turns out that Big Mike, the former manager of the Buy More store, has Sgt. Al Powell as a first cousin. Sgt. Powell was the LAPD cop who helped John McClane take down the terrorists who "hijacked" the Nakatomi Plaza building in "Die Hard". That can mean one of two splainins - either "Die Hard" has a counterpart in the TV Universe, or the movie has been totally absorbed out of the movie universe and into Toobworld, as has happened before with "Maverick", the 1966 "Batman", and the "Star Trek" franchise.

And 'Chuck' isn't the only TV show that has incorporated something from "Die Hard" into Toobworld. 'Middleman' was at the Nakatomi Plaza building, crawling through the duct works during a case.

2) VANDALAY INDUSTRIESChuck applied for a job at Vandalay Industries which fans of 'Seinfeld' know was the fictional corporation that George Costanza claimed as a job reference. But what if it wasn't fictional? Maybe George saw the name somewhere and pulled it out of the deep recesses of his memory.

I don't know if we actually saw the name "Vandalay Industries" actually spelled out within those 'Seinfeld' episodes where it was featured (beginning with "The Stake Out"). But it's usually spelled as "Vandelay", whereas 'Chuck' identified it as "Vandalay" in an onscreen credit. But since those are invisible to all but the tele-cognizant, we can dismiss it if necessary.

Just An Old Cowhand On The TiVo Grande

As the Trickster once said, "Reality is boring, that's why I change it whenever I can."
I'm just "The Man Who Viewed Too Much", and "Inner Toob" is a blog exploring and celebrating the 'reality' of an alternate universe in which everything that ever happened on TV actually takes place.
Most of my theories about the TV Universe come from thinking inside the box and thus can't be proven. But I've never been one to shy away from a tall tale.....
Remember: "The more you watch, the more you've seen!"